Are my messages private?
Answered
Hi
When I reply to a proposal, I have to tick a box showing that I accept my message will be public. So how can I communicate privately, e.g. in order to send hosting details? One seller says our conversation is private but I don't really believe him.
Thanks
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There are two ways of messaging sellers - the clarification board beneath your job, which is public and requires you to tick the box acknowledging this- and a proper proposal, which is private. If you've been notified that you have a proposal and it has a proposal ID, a quoted price and a button to accept it, it's a private workstream.
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I've just been asked to submit a proposal but I do not agree with the proposed software they're wishing to use in their job description. I want to be able to send them a private message, thanking them for inviting me but suggesting they consider a different solution (one that I can't do so despite potentially turning down a job, I'd rather they use a better solution). I can't tell them this in a private message, I can't send a proposal because I'm not proposing and I do not want to state this in a public thread.
Surely you must realise the benefit of being able to send a private message, regardless of the situation and not have to rely on a proposal being accepted?
In a similar vein, how can I turn down a proposal and explain why? Again, it's not something I'd want to write on a public thread via the questions for the person that submitted the job.
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You can turn down an invitation sent by a buyer and explain why - click through to the job posting and click Decline Invitation, top right. Select Custom from the dropdown list of reasons and fill it in.
Similarly, you can also explain why you're turning down a proposal when you decline it. (Not sure where the option is to do this, but as a seller I have often had proposals declined with polite thank yous and reasons.
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Hello All,
Please note that a Buyer has the option to create a Private Job Post and invite Sellers to send proposals, this will be private, and all the messages via the workstream can only be seen by the Buyer and Seller.
As for the clarification board, only the 1st questions that is asked by a Seller, will appear on the clarification board, once the Buyer replies it creates a Workstream and the conversation becomes private between the Buyer and the Seller.
I hope this clarifies the situation.
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a Buyer has the option to create a Private Job Post
Yes, the PPH private job that is quite public.
Although PPH allows the buyer to create a 'private' job that only sellers they select, the world can look at the job details.
They should be called 'not-so-private' jobs or a more accurate description would be 'invitation-only' jobs.
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This is an issue, I don't want to publicly post some of the details like links but rather give them direct to potential sellers if they ask yet there is no way to know if the information is private or not. Why don't you make a note that the section is private. Your red box about direct contact is all over the place but why make a note that this is a private conversation and not visible to public. I had to ask the seller.
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Dave, conversations are not private if a question is asked, but they are private after a proposal is made or accepted.
Any message after the proposal is accepted is private (but can be read by PPH staff).
PPH staff don't come here, so nobody at PPH is going to read your message, you need to make the point to customer support, at which time PPH will just ignore it.. ..most likely.
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The worst thing is buyers create private jobs for invite-only candidates, but the world can see them even though they can't make a proposal.
It's been like that for years and PPH was told many times that this was wrong.
PPH make very bizarre decisions about their system.
Every question I post on PPH is subject to moderation. I think it's because some buyers didn't like my questions (I assume most people don't get questions moderated).
Here's two other stupidities about the PPH system:
If a question fails moderation, they tell you it fails, they tell you why it might have failed, but they don't tell you what question it was that was rejected, so you can be totally clueless about the question and/or have no evidence that the question someone didn't like didn't break any rule.
Most of my questions are rejected if PPH doesn't like the tone (I suspect) but they like to suggest it was rejected for some other canned reason.
Another stupidity is that a question answered by a buyer has no link in the email back to that job, so it can be a pain to try and find that job again.
Similarly, buyers cancel jobs, but sometime you wonder which job it was.
Also, I sometimes want to ask buyers if they have any feedback as to why they rejected a proposal. The only way to attempt that is to make a fake proposal just to ask them!
They really are inept.
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..in the very early days, after a seller had a proposal accepted, you could actually read the winning proposal and know the value of it.
That was fantastic!
Then they got wise and stopped it.. :-(
Oh, and the furore we had over calling us 'sellers' and people who want work done 'buyers'. We are like bits of meat.
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..and the good old days when there was a phone number you could call and they were based in London, not Greece..
The telephone support was fantastic and I often was called to get my opinion.
The CEO did a couple of Google Hangouts and said how useful they were. Whatever happened to those?
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I don't even know if I am replying to anyone? The format looks like I am replying to myself.
Buyer and Sellers are strange designations, as if I am walking down the street and someone says "hey, wanna buy a wordpress site?" This PPH seems like a BMW with iDrive, great car but so much work to spin around the knob push click, jog, when you used to push the dedicated button on the dash to turn the radio on or off.
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There was another forum run by PPH that predates this one. PPH hated it because people had conversation - mostly criticising PPH and there were many excellent threads with great advice for users and constructive advice for PPH. PPH had a community manager, but they absolutely hated the comments. They then deliberately scrapped it to bury the conversations forever and replaced it with this format. It's designed for people to ask a question about PPH and for people to answer the specific question and upvote the best answer.
The thing is that this style kills the ability to have a conversation, which is really what PPH wanted.
It didn't stifle conversation entirely so now this place is very hard to get to.
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